A pilot who wrote a conspiracy theory book about 9/11 is dead after he shot his two teenage children and family dog before turning the gun on himself.
Relatives and friends of Phillip Marshall were stunned by the violent crime which took place in Calaveras County on Saturday.
Their bodies were discovered when friends of the teens went to the family home on Sandalwood Drive and looked through the windows, they could see 54-year-old Phillip Marshall lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

Murder suicide: Philip Marshall is accused of shooting his children Alex, right, and Macaila Marshall, left, before turning the gun on himself

Their bodies were discovered when friends of the teens went to the family home on Sandalwood Drive on Saturday and looked through the windows and saw Phillip Marshall lying on the floor in a pool of blood
Micalia Phillips, 14, and her 17-year-old brother Alex, were also found dead at the home inside the gated Forrest Meadows community.
Sheriff’s Sgt Chris Hewitt says when deputies arrived around 3pm on Saturday, they found the victims dead of apparent gunshot wounds in what they believe is a murder suicide.
The tragedy came as a shock for those living in the small town.
'Alex is a junior, played football. Micaela was a bright bubbly freshman,' Michael Chimente told CBS Sacramento.

The former airline pilot's controversial conspiracy book The Big Bamboozle: 9/11 and the War on Terror was released last year
Chimente is the principal of Bret Harte High School in nearby Angels Camp, where the two teens attended.
'Our first concern is not only reaching out to the family and giving them the support they need, but also supporting our students,' said Chimente.
Grief counselors were called in to help students deal with the sudden death of their friends and classmates.
A preliminary examination showed that all three were shot once in the head with a handgun.
Hewitt says the mother of the teens and estranged wife of Phillip Marshall, was out of the country at the time.
The former airline pilot's controversial conspiracy book The Big Bamboozle: 9/11 and the War on Terror was released last year.
While he was writing it, Marshall believed that his life was in danger because of the allegations involved.
According to Santa Barbara View, during the editing and pre-marketing process of Marshall’s book, he expressed some degree of paranoia because the nonfiction work accused the George W. Bush administration of being in cahoots with the Saudi intelligence community in training the hijackers who died in the planes used in the attacks.

'The true reason the attack was successful is because of an inside military stand-down and a coordinated training operation that prepared the hijackers to fly heavy commercial airliners.
We have dozens of FBI documents to prove that this flight training was conducted in California, Florida and Arizona in the 18 months leading up to the attack.'